Category Archives: morality

“Value-Charged”

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A panel, the Texas Education Agency, that is “advising” the Texas State Board of Education wants to deprecate matters related to the Alamo and its defense by a band of heroic Americans (yes, I used those two terms.  Both of them).

The 7th grade social studies curriculum used to teach the defense of the Alamo currently uses the phrase siege of the Alamo and all of the heroic defenders who gave their lives there.  This panel told the SBOE to use only siege of the Alamo.  “Heroic,” they insist, is “value-charged.”

You bet it’s a value-charged characterization.  We shouldn’t hesitate to point out, even to emphasize, to the children to whom we’re teaching our history the trials, the costs, the lives paid by—the heroism of—those who defended us.  Here is a concrete example of what Thomas Jefferson meant when he described the fertilizer of our tree of liberty.

Far beyond that, we should celebrate our heroes.  Here is a concrete example of Benjamin Franklin’s meaning when he said that our republic can stand only if we are a virtuous people.

This group of alleged experts—they’re represented to be educators and historians—didn’t stop there, sadly.

They suggested deleting the Travis letter because they think when teachers talk about the Alamo they will absolutely mention it, but not having it outlined specifically just meant teachers would spend less time on it.

Why on earth should less time be spent on a letter, Travis’ Victory or Death letter, so central to the defense of Texas?  Why should our children spend less time learning their Texas history and this critical episode in their American history?

This is the letter—which I was taught way back when I was in junior high and ‘way up north in Iowa—that these personages consider too trivial to teach our children [emphases in the original]:

Commandancy of the The Alamo

Bejar, Feby. 24th. 1836

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World—

Fellow Citizens & compatriots—

        I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat.  Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.  If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country — Victory or Death.

William Barrett Travis.

Lt.  Col. comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side — When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn — We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.

Travis

This performance of this panel of “experts” is shameful.

Connections

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One in particular stands out for me: that between Senator Amy Klobuchar (D, MN) and the truth.  Charles Hurt, in the Washington Times, has the sordid story.

[Klobuchar] claims to have read 148,000 documents that reveal Judge Kavanaugh to be so heinous as to be unfit for the high court.

OK, let’s say Ms. Klobuchar spent two minutes reading each document. That would be 296,000 minutes—or 205 days—reading these documents. Which is pretty remarkable considering Judge Kavanaugh was nominated 55 days ago.

There is another word for this. It is called a “lie.” And the person who utters it is known as a “liar,” even if the person she tells this “lie” to is so sleepy-eyed as to appear to be fully asleep.

And this:

But this isn’t even the most astonishing part of Ms Klobuchar’s sewer dive on national television.

She goes on to say that as horrific as all these documents reveal Judge Kavanaugh to be, she is not allowed to share the documents with the American people. She is not even allowed to tell us what they say.

“I can’t even tell you about them right now on the show[.]”

In her opening remarks during Tuesday’s Senate Judicial Committee confirmation hearing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, she repeated lie about the documents, too.  The woman is shameless.

Remember this in the fall when she’s up for reelection.  Remember it in general as all the Progressive-Democrat candidates running this fall show their approval of her dishonesty with their silence.

An Interview Ducked

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The New Yorker invited Steve Bannon to a panel debate, its New Yorker Festival.  Then, after “public criticism,” the mag disinvited him.  Other scheduled participants also…objected.

Shortly after Mr Bannon was announced as a guest, several film stars, producers and comedians declared on Twitter that they didn’t want to be on a schedule with the former White House senior adviser. Actor Jim Carrey, comedy producer Judd Apatow, and comedian John Mulaney all backed out, citing Mr Bannon’s participation as the primary reason.

New Yorker editor David Remnick made the laughable claim that

This…[is] a question of putting pressure on a set of arguments and prejudices that have influenced our politics and a President still in office[.]

From that, Remnick claimed, the Festival was not an appropriate venue for engaging Bannon.

What abject cowards are Remnick, Carrey, Apatow, and Mulaney. What better way to show up Bannon, to put[] pressure on a set of arguments and prejudices that have influenced our politics and a President still in office, than to debate him and expose the foolishness of his positions and those arguments and prejudices?

They’ve exposed their own prejudices, and they’ve shown they have no arguments to make to counter Bannon.

Nike

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Nike makes shoes, among other things.  It also has chosen to use Colin Kaepernick in its new Just Do It campaign.  You recall Kaepernick: ex-49er quarterback who’s the instigator and leader of the NFL players’ campaign of contempt for our national anthem and our flag and of insult for the generations of our veterans who’ve fought, been maimed, and died for our freedom, including these players’ right to be stupid and to engage in contemptible and insulting behavior.

But wait—aren’t the players protesting police brutality, discrimination, and other social injustices?  That’s certainly their claim.  However, if their claim were accurate, they’d protest police brutality, discrimination, and other social injustices instead of attacking our anthem, flag, and veterans.  They’d also go into the neighborhoods where these things are occurring and actively help the locals, as many of the players who aren’t behaving so contemptibly and insultingly are doing.

Further, even if that had been their message at the outset, it’s clear that their message has been not understood that way by much, if not most, of their audience.  They would, then, clarify by changing their message delivery in order to have their message better understood.  Instead, the players have continued their delivery unchanged in the slightest.  From that, it’s clear that either their message never was what they claimed it to be, and they’ve been attacking these symbols and defenders all along, or they’ve walked away from their message and now are simply engaged in a toddler’s ego trip of out-stubborning those who disagree with them.

The players know all of this; in particular, Kaepernick knows all of this; and Nike knows all of this.  Yet,

Nike has said it “opposes discrimination of any type and has a longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

Too bad that doesn’t apply to our anthem, our flag, or our veterans.

I’ve bought my last Nike product.  I’m Just Doing It.

Colloquialisms and Racism

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Ron DeSantis, Republican candidate for Governor of Florida, suggested in an interview shortly after his nomination, that his just-nominated Progressive-Democrat opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, would, if elected, monkey up the Florida economy.

Oh, the hue and cry from the Progressive-Democrats, the NLMSM, and from Gillum.  A colloquialism that plainly means to mess with things, or to mess things up, suddenly is a racist bull horn—much more than a dog whistle according to Gillum.

How can this be?  One candidate says another candidate will mess things up, and this is racist!?

Oh, wait—Gillum is black.

Notice that.  Gillum isn’t a political candidate who happens to be a black man; he’s a black man who happens to be a political candidate.

Americans for generations have worked hard to make race irrelevant.  All men are created equal, equal employment, Martin Luther King’s dream, and on and on.

But not anymore.  The Progressive-Democrat, his Party, and the Left in general insist that what’s important here is the man’s race, not his policies.  It’s his race that gives meaning to the colloquialism, not his policies.

This emphasis by the Progressive-Democrat, his Party, and the Left in general on race is rank racist bigotry.  That it’s wholly artificial, done by politicians solely for personal political gain and by pseudo-journalists solely for click bait makes their racism even worse.

Gillum’s cynically artificial racism should disqualify him from public office.